Steps not counting when pushing a stroller, pram or cart: add the missing steps

Why don't steps count when you push a stroller?

An iPhone counts steps from the swing and bounce of your body. With both hands on a handlebar and the phone in the basket or cup holder, it barely moves in a walking rhythm, and a 40-minute loop can end up logged as only a handful of steps. A shopping cart, a bag hung on a pram, or a phone left charging at home give the same flat result.

You can't make the phone feel those steps after the fact. You can add them to Apple Health yourself, though, dated to when you actually walked.

How to add the missing steps at the right time

1. Work out the walk: a step count from another device, or the distance of your route.
2. On Home, open Ended at and pick the date and time the walk finished, up to 7 days ago.
3. For a step count, choose Spread over: 1 hour for an hour-long walk, 3 hours for a long outing, Quick for the shortest natural time.
4. Type the steps into Custom amount and tap Add, or tap a Quick steps preset, or a distance button if you know the route length.
5. After each log, Ended at goes back to now. Set it again before you add another past walk.

Worked example: a one-hour stroller walk

You pushed the stroller from 16:30 to 17:30, the phone sat in the basket and logged almost nothing, and you put the walk at about 3,000 steps. Set Ended at to 17:30, choose 1 hour and add 3,000. If the app has not written anything later that day, it saves 60 one-minute samples between 16:30 and 17:30, 44 to 57 steps each, exactly 3,000 in total, plus 2.308 km of walking distance.

No step count? Use the route. A 2 km loop is the 2KM button: 2,600 steps over 30 minutes at 4 km/h. A 5 km outing is the 5KM button: 6,500 steps over 75 minutes.

What happens with Apple Watch rings and the app's chart?

PokeT-Walk writes to Apple Health only. It does not change Apple Watch Activity rings or calories, and it has no watch app. The steps count toward the Health total for the day you picked.

Inside the app, the This Week chart and the Steps added today widget group entries by the day you logged them, not the day set in Ended at. A walk from yesterday that you add today shows in today's bar there, while Health files it under yesterday.

Tips for past walks

• An entry stays inside one calendar day and is never dated in the future.
• Two walks on the same day? Log them one after the other. If the time you pick is already covered by an earlier entry from the app, the new one is placed just before or after it, never on top.
• Early in the morning, with Natural Pace on, little of today is free: at 00:30 about 1,650 steps fit. The alert Natural Pace is on lets you Write them all now or keep the natural pace and add them later.
• Only add what the phone really missed. If it counted part of the walk, add the difference, and expect the day's total to rise a little less: where the iPhone also has steps in those minutes, Health counts one source, not both.

Questions and answers

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• Why is my iPhone not counting my steps? · PokeT-Walk

More PokeT-Walk guides

• How to add steps manually to Apple Health as a logged entry
• How to add steps with a Shortcut on iPhone, and when an app is easier
• How to add treadmill steps to Apple Health when your iPhone missed them
• Km to steps: a walking and running chart from 1 to 12 km
• How to edit or delete steps you added to Apple Health
• Added steps not showing in another app? A checklist for Apple Health
• How to add a steps widget to your iPhone Home Screen or Lock Screen
• Why is my iPhone not counting my steps?
• Forgot to wear my Apple Watch: can I add the steps?
• How many steps a day on the Camino de Santiago, and how do I log a stage my phone missed?
• All questions about PokeT-Walk
• Back to PokeT-Walk